If We Didn't Live In Reality
by TheOceanBreathesSalty
Summary: How things could be, and how things really are. Oneshot. Jalex, sort of, from Justin's POV. Reviews make me smile.


(J U S T I N pov)

In a story, we would be together.

I would sacrifice everything and she would give up all she had and together, we would defy all the odds. The people that truly cared about us would accept it and the people that didn't accept it would still respect it, still leave it, and leave us, alone.

This isn't a story.

I'm not willing to leave college and she isn't willing to leave the family.

The odds are too high, the stakes too great, and we don't stand a chance. We're two teenagers trying to gamble in Las Vegas and they aren't gonna believe that we're 21 for a second.

What we have, it isn't acknowledged.

People don't speak of it, don't stare directly at it for fear of turning into stone.

My name is Justin Russo.

And my life isn't a story. It isn't a movie or a fairytale or a work of fiction or a bedtime tale for little boys and girls.

My life is reality.

It's reality of the severest kind.

_

* * *

If it wasn't reality and just a story, this might be how it'd go._

_One day, I would wake up. The sun would be brighter than usual and there would be perfect, fluffy white clouds scattered throughout the bright blue sky like a painting. Nothing would be different, but something would have changed._

_There would just be this feeling, this something in the bottom of my stomach. I might say that it's instinct, maybe love, maybe magic._

_I'm not sure what it is._

_But I'll pay attention to it._

_I'll listen to whatever that feeling is when it tells me to go out on the balcony and I'll stride past the silent living room to get there. I'll be able to hear Harper working out downstairs and Max's laughter will drift up the spiral staircase from the substation._

_I'll slide open the door with the smell of the breakfast my mother cooked strong in my nose and I'll see Alex there._

_She'll be staring at the street, the brighter-than-usual-sun shining through her hair and making it look like she's wearing a halo. She'll still be in her pajamas, her face make-up free and no jewelry in sight. Her hands will be twined loosely in front of her, and there will be a gentle smile on her face, one of her Alex smiles that are just for me._

_The smile will broaden when she hears me step out on to the balcony behind her and she'll laugh while she tells me she loves me._

_And I'll smile when I say it back._

_Then we'll kiss and hold hands and when Max and Harper catch us, they'll grin and say that they always suspected. Mom and dad will tease me about staying out of her room and forbid her from visiting me alone at college._

_We'll be in love._

_We'll kiss whenever we want and all the people important to us won't care that the blood running through my veins is the same blood that flows in hers._

_We'll walk into the sunset with cheesy background music playing and we'll live together, happy, forever._

* * *

I've known that I've loved Alex in a more-than-okay way since I was fourteen.

The realization came on the day that Alex met Harper.

She came home with some new redheaded girl and the two of them laughed together and teased Max together and did everything together.

And all of a sudden, Alex wasn't doing those things with me anymore.

I had lost my little sister.

Jealousy and hatred consumed my thoughts and I spent dinner glaring at Harper and Alex in equal amounts. Sure, Alex and me fought all the time, but still.

She was _mine_.

And Harper was daring to take her away from me.

It took a while for me to figure out that these thoughts weren't exactly normal. That most big brothers were happy when their younger siblings got friends so that then they didn't have to deal with them anymore. They didn't begrudge their little sister getting a best friend.

But I did.

I hated Harper. She wasn't even a bad person, a little creepy once she started to like me, but whatever. She was an okay girl. And I hated her.

It wasn't rational though.

There was absolutely no reason to hate Harper. None whatsoever. So I shut up about it. I stopped glaring and I stopped complaining whenever she came over, because every time I protested, someone wanted to know why.

And I couldn't tell them why.

**Because Alex was _mine_ and no one else's** didn't seem like a very good answer to give.

So I stopped doing things that caused questions.

I never stopped hating Harper though.

She took _my_ Alex away from me and it didn't matter how unintentional it was, she still did it.

And that wasn't okay.

_

* * *

If my life was a movie, there would be a kickass soundtrack for my life and good would always win over evil and love would conquer all._

_I would be with Alex whenever possible. We would get an apartment together, somewhere in Europe, and our days would be full of nothing but good food, good conversation, and good sex._

_It's the perfect movie plot._

_Two people are so in love that they leave everything behind to be together and start new lives in another country. They get all new friends and have a small wedding and their lives are amazing._

_If I lived in a movie, Alex and I would be madly in love._

_And that would be all that mattered._

* * *

When I was sixteen, Alex grew up.

She got all _womanly_.

And I almost lost my mind.

This wasn't okay. Previously, my feelings for Alex had been too much love and too much possessiveness, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't terrible, maybe it made me a not-so-healthy person and a not-so-great big brother, but it wasn't the end of the world or anything.

It was just love.

Then Alex hit puberty.

It was like I went to sleep, and Alex was this girl who barely needed a training bra and preferred wearing boy's clothes to tight jeans and low-cut shirts. But when I woke up, there was this other Alex. And this other Alex, she wore v-necks and miniskirts and make-up and had curves.

And it wasn't just love anymore, it wasn't even just love and possessiveness anymore.

It was lust.

She was absolutely, stunningly, amazingly gorgeous.

I _wanted_ Alex.

And I went from a not-so-great big brother to someone who would be forced into intensive therapy if anyone ever heard what I was thinking.

My thoughts during Alex's first year of high school were positively sinful, horribly un-brotherly and against all kinds of laws.

I never even tried to stop thinking them.

_

* * *

My life as a fairytale might go something like this._

_I would live in a kingdom called Old Yorke with my younger brother, Prince Maximilian, and my parents, King Jerry and Queen Teresa._

_We would share a border with our neighboring country that would be ran by King and Queen Finkel. They would have two daughters, Princess Alexandria and Princess Harper._

_I would be promised to Princess Harper, but I would meet Princess Alexandria first._

_We would fall in love and want to get married. She would allow me to call her Alex and I would tell her to call me Justin, never Crown Prince Justin._

_We would run away together when my parents try to make me marry Princess Harper and we would only come back once Maximilian was crowned king of Old Yorke._

_He would allow us to legally marry and live in the castle with him and we would have occasional dinners with Queen Harper and her husband, King Zeke._

_And we would live happily ever after._

* * *

I turn eighteen and graduate valedictorian of my class.

I go to college, Yale because anything less than Ivy League is accepted as failure, and only come home for winter break because they kick us out of the dorms.

When I get home, everything's the same. Alex still refuses to live up to her potential and Max still likes orange and faking being an airhead and dad still spends all his time in the substation and mom still pretends to be cooler about the whole magic thing than she really is. Harper is still living there, but she doesn't like me anymore and she spends the entire time I'm at home asking me questions about Zeke that I don't know the answers to.

I spend the three weeks in a state of constant wariness, always trying to make sure that I don't slip up, that no one notices when I accidentally stare at Alex for too long and that no one hears when I unintentionally wake up from a _really good_ dream with her name spilling from my lips.

I contain my grimace when she leaves with some boy to go to a New Years Eve party and I ignore the knowing glance that Max sends my way when I shatter the plate I'm holding when she tells mom she kissed the random boy.

The day before classes are set to start, I'm so relieved that I'm packed and ready to go before five in the morning. Mom cries when I leave and dad sniffles and Max tells me that I better contact him. Alex just smirks and hits my shoulder, her eyes sparking with something that looks like suspicion.

I leave without breakfast, the weight of her eyes on my back.

_

* * *

Life as a bedtime story is full of charming princes and damsels in distress and ugly trolls and sparkly unicorns._

_My life would go like this._

_I'm a prince and I live in a land far, far away with my royal family._

_One day, news reaches us that an evil witch has escaped from prison and is terrorizing a small village just outside our walls._

_My brother and I would go to save the village and we would get there just in time to stop the witch from cursing a beautiful brunette girl named Alexandria. She will hug me in her gratefulness and we'll feel sparks run through our bodies. _

_We would ride back through town on my unicorn steed, back to my parents who would immediately fall in love with her big brown eyes and charming personality._

_I will marry the damsel and she'll become a princess and, after a few years have passed, we will become king and queen and rule over all of our subjects fairly and wisely._

_They will love us and, as we will never be apart, will always refer to us and Justin and Alexandria._

_I will no longer be known simply as Justin and she will no longer be known only as Alexandria._

_Instead, we will go down in history as King Justin and Queen Alexandria, our names linked together until the end of time._

* * *

My name is Justin Russo and I have spent my life dreaming.

I have spent hours imaging what life would be like if it were a story, how I would fare in a movie, how things could be if we lived in a fairytale, and what would happen in my bedtime story life. I have built all these perfect worlds, all these wonderful scenarios, in which Alex and I can end up together.

We can be in love and people will accept us and we will go down in history with our names coupled together.

But I don't live in a story.

I live in reality.

And in reality, good boys don't fall in love with their little sisters. They don't feel lust or possessiveness for someone that they aren't allowed to have.

In the real world that I live in, Alex and I cannot be together.

It's horrible and I hate it and I love her in a way that I will never love anyone else.

But we live reality.

And that's how it has to be.

* * *

**I know. First person. Are you gasping in shock? I know I did. Please tell me your thoughts on it, what you liked and what you didn't, what, if anything, was confusing. I do not own WOWP.**

**I hope you liked it.**

**Thank you for reading dear ones.**


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